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The man who gave up everything for Litecoin

In the letter

  • John Kim went all-in on cryptocurrencies in 2018.
  • But the markets fell and two years later he is still homeless.
  • In 2021, he says, those who called him foolhardy will be proven wrong.

In August 2018, John Kim sold his house and gave the proceeds to his wife. Earlier this year he had sold his profitable business and invested his savings in cryptocurrencies. Then he got into his van adorned with the Litecoin Logo, and start a one-man campaign to raise awareness and acceptance of his favorite cryptocurrency among the masses.

Over the past two years, he’s been giving away thousands of dollars in Litecoin, convincing restaurants and bars across the United States to accept this as a quick and easy method of payment.

John Kim: 100% Litecoin committed. Image: John Kim

“They called me a Litecoin evangelist. But I’m really a simple man with a simple plan. I believe the best way to get people into crypto is to show them an example and let them experience it for themselves, ”said Kim Decrypt on a recent call from Texas weathering the coronavirus storm.

Still homeless, criticized for being foolhardy and reckless, and admits that cryptocurrencies played a huge role in dissolving his marriage. But Kim doesn’t regret it. He told us why his story will have a happy ending.

Giving up everything for crypto

Kim, 43, said he grew up in Dallas, Texas. Leaving high school without a diploma, he worked in a number of low-paying jobs until he was able to start his own business with $ 10,000 borrowed from his father.

As of 2018, it had a chain of nine cell phone stores and was the second largest retailer in the Oklahoma area, he said.

Together with his wife, Kim began investing in Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2017 and was increasingly drawn into the cryptocurrency world – much to the dismay of his family and friends.

Litecoin Evangelist Jr. Kim with his son Jaedin, “Litecoin Evangelist Jr.” Image: John Kim

Litecoin in particular caught his attention. The cryptocurrency is the fifth largest by market capitalization and is designed to process transactions faster than Bitcoin. Its creator is Charlie Lee, an MIT graduate, ex-Googler, and former technical director at Crypto Exchange Coinbase who is revered among its millions of supporters.

The two entered into a correspondence on Crypto Twitter when Kim offered to defend Lee from critics who were angry that Lee had sold his LTC holdings at peak prices. (Lee indicated that he did this to support decentralization and prevent conflicts of interest.)

“I told him about my background,” said Kim. “I haven’t had such a great life. I messed up a lot when I was younger. I don’t know anything about the technical side of the blockchain [but] If you give me a chance, I swear I’ll find a way not to let you down, ”he said to Lee. (Lee checked the exchange but didn’t add a comment.) “I just poured my heart out on direct messages and didn’t even know who would answer me. And then he answered. He said, “You got it.”

That was all the encouragement Kim needed. He sold his business and went all-in on cryptocurrencies. His goal: to be a Litecoin evangelist for the world. Meanwhile, his marriage began to break up.

“There is no way she would dare to go on this crazy journey with me. It wasn’t even a question, ”Lee said of his wife’s reaction. “A lot of people have tried to give me advice like marriage and family first, but my wife knew it even when she did [first] hit me that I’m either all in or all out. I’m not doing the whole middle thing. So I was able to take 10 grand and build 15 stores. ”

In Kim’s mind, the all-in cryptocurrency business was the only opportunity to change the trajectory of not only his own life, but the lives of his two sons as well. “If you don’t have an education and don’t have a degree, you have to outsmart everyone because you don’t have much to do. Everyone has already started the race. You have to catch up, ”he said.

This is the house I sold to increase #Litecoin awareness and acceptance in my #LTC 2018 truck.

2 years later I’m still homeless but I could buy it back if I wanted to. But I won’t. I like my simple nomadic lifestyle. pic.twitter.com/aLVuh6b4w2

– 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐊𝐢𝐦𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 (@ johnkim77) November 24, 2020

With the money from the sale of her family home, his wife opened a Korean grill restaurant in a neighboring state. “And she’s fine,” said Kim. “But at the moment she doesn’t like crypto because she felt like crypto took me away from her. So she doesn’t own any crypto. “

Living the Litecoin life

And Kim’s talent should be tested sooner than he thought. LTC fell to a low of $ 22 not long after its mission began (its all-time high was $ 400 in 2017), and Kim, who was now broke, experienced some dark moments.

At those times, he said, the Litecoin community came through, paid for a room in a hotel, or offered a place on a couch.

Outside the crypto room, he was ridiculed as irresponsible and stupid. Still, he held onto his weapons. He appeared as Lee’s personal bodyguard at the 2018 cryptocurrency opening convention, visited 30 US cities in 30 days for a promotional tour, and completed several others.

When he decided to go to Asia, Kim did not ask the Litecoin Foundation – which was set up to manage the development of the cryptocurrency – nor the Litecoin community for money. He simply tweeted his intent and was at a prime location in Asia for the following week, courtesy of OKEx’s crypto exchange and travel website Travala (which gave him money to pay at hotels in crypto).

His 13-year-old son Jaedin, also known as Łitecoin Evangelist Jr., is one of the few who never doubted his father’s mission, Kim said. He gives his sons (his youngest, Jaemin, is three years old) LTC for ice cream at Baskin Robbins, games at GameStop, and movie tickets at the AMC Movie Theater.

Litecoin has built a reputation for adding new functionality and quickly integrating consumer payment applications such as SPEDN, which enables merchants to accept payments from their customers’ phones in over 40,000 locations.

These days, Kim is equally invested in BTC, LTC and AMP, the token for Flexa, developer of the SPEDN who worked with the Gemini crypto exchange for the project.

“My whole goal is to simplify a complex matter,” said Kim. “I think 99% of people don’t have the time, the mind, or the opportunity to understand the intricacies of a blockchain. Actions speak louder than words. So I send them a little bitcoin or litecoin. And that’s exactly where they’re sold. “

Big tours are not possible with coronavirus, but Kim is still traveling on site and presenting a weekly podcast titled ‘FunkyCrypto‘, next to retired MMA fighter Ben Askren. The collaboration came about when Kim saw Askew Lee was following and flew to the Olympian’s home in Wisconsin to ask him to become an official member of the Litecoin community.

The Toyota of the crypto

In the past few weeks, the outlook for LTC has risen in a bull run, along with a host of other altcoins. At the time of writing, the price of LTC is $ 88, but Kim’s job is far from over. He predicts repeat performance from 2017, when Litecoin started the year at $ 4 and rose 10,000% to $ 400. Next year, Kim said emphatically, Litecoin will be – at least – three digits. “I call Litecoin the Toyota for blockchain and crypto,” said Kim, who claims the network has never had any downtime.

And more improvements are coming. This summer a new testnet was launched with the implementation of Mimblewimble, a data protection and fungibility function developed in collaboration with data protection project BEAM. The fungibility, where coins cannot be “tainted” by what they have been used for in the past, is a major selling point.

Like many in the industry, Kim is passionate about PayPal plans to integrate cryptocurrencies, announced in October. He also points to the Invested $ 400 million in Bitcoin Made by Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy, who many believe has opened the floodgates for institutional investors.

“I think 2021 will really be the year I prove everyone wrong and be humble, but I will make sure my children are looked after for the rest of their lives,” he said. “I made my promise to the local community, the Litecoin investors, that I won’t stop until we hit an all-time high again and Charlie is relieved and then I can just leave.”

Meanwhile, Kim is enjoying the moment. He recently released his first music videowhich offers a good glimpse into his infectious, disrespectful, but good-natured humor, as well as guest appearances from Charlie Lee and other Litecoin stars.

Whether or not LTC will be in the three digits next year, one thing is certain, according to Kim: “I know that no one is ready to go as far as I will show the world.”

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